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Sunday night, my husband and I ate dinner at the Salem Hotel and attended evening services at the tabernacle at Salem Campmeeting. We were guests of Sam Ramsey, the biggest and best cheerleader for Salem Campmeeting.

News of the destruction of the historic "Hub Junction Bus Stop" came to me over the weekend like an arrow through the heart. My family settled in that area in 1861 and my dad, as President of the Historical Society was instrumental in restoring the Old Brick Store, the first courthouse in Newton County.

There is something special about looking forward to something. Knowing that there is something good that is going to happen, or even might happen, gives us a reason to get up a bit earlier and work a bit harder. Optimism is the fuel that leads us to put our noses to the grindstone and persevere in the face of the inevitable setbacks.

You can conduct byzantine transactions through opaque investment accounts and private corporations in offshore tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Or you can credibly run for president at a time of great economic distress.

As we celebrate this Fourth of July and the brash announcement to the world of a Declaration of Independence by a ragtag colony in a frontier continent, how can an American today separate this singularly unique occasion of history and heritage from the obligation as a citizen to select the representatives of the people who are sworn to carry out their will?

As we celebrate this Fourth of July and the brash announcement to the world of a Declaration of Independence by a ragtag colony in a frontier continent, How can an American today separate this singularly unique occasion of history and heritage from the obligation as a citizen to select the representatives of the people who are sworn to carry out their will.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has garnered more than his share of attention recently as the court handed down decisions in high profile cases. Only last week, he cast the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion finding that President Obama's healthcare reform act was not unconstitutional with its mandate for individual health insurance policies. History was made when the measure passed the Congress, and was made all over again with that decision.

It would be stretching things to say that Covington has a serious tie to the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, but even ...

I was in Athens on Sunday, dining at one of my favorite places and mulling over a cup of coffee and my little slice of life, when I saw something that intrigued me. I watched my waitress stand on a stool and erase a big chalkboard they use for a menu. As she wrote up the new entree item - a tasty sounding omelette - I thought: "I wonder if she ever imagined she'd have a job that required her to erase a chalkboard?" We all erased chalkboards in school, but who knew it could be a good career move?

I was contemplating beginning my spring cleaning, even though the first day of summer has come and gone. I kept trying to remember a poem about a housewife who spent all her life cleaning dirt from her home and then was rewarded by being buried in dirt. Wonderful irony.

Everyone seems comfortable with the relationship between lawmakers and lizard-loafered lobbyists except We the Unwashed. But, then, what do we know? Rep. Don Parsons, R-Cobb County, a seven-term member of the House, views the fuss over trying to curb unlimited lobbying expenditures as "silly." Parsons has some serious competition in the Republican primary. I would have suggested he employ a more appropriate term. Most of us don't find this matter to be silly.

The political impact of Thursday's stunning Supreme Court decision on health care reform is clear - good for President Obama and the Democrats, bad for Mitt Romney and the Republicans - but fleeting, and thus secondary. Much more important is what the ruling means in the long term for the physical and moral health of the nation.

We declared our independence from Great Britain 236 years ago next week. It was a declaration long in coming, brought about by the overreaching rule of King George III and Britain's insistence on taxation without representation.

If you've spent many summers in the southern U.S., chances are you've seen them. I'm referring to those huge, wasp-like insects that show up this time of year. They have colors, markings and a body shape kind of like a hornet, only closer in size to a 747 than a Cessna.